He thought he was crafty, clever. He tried to put the Lord our God to the test. Satan attempted the same in the wilderness. He failed. The Lord does not take kindly to being tested. But the lawyer thought himself something. And he was looking for knowledge. He wanted to see if Jesus met his standards; if Jesus knew what he did. You know the type, the one who asks a question in class just show how smart they think they are.Consider the ridiculousness of the lawyer’s question, Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? The question shows more than he meant. He thought he was clever, but actually it displayed his ignorance.

Its absurd, What must I do to inherit? What if I asked, “What must I do to inherit the crown of England?” There are two options: to be an offspring of the royal bloodline of Great Britain. Or go to war and overthrow the crown. That is how an inheritance is passed. You can’t do anything to earn it. And since I don’t have the proper blood, the kingdom must change hands by violence.

But there is another problem with this question. Not only can we not gain inheritance by merit, but the underside of the idea of eternal life is crawling with maggots. If we do not inherit the kingdom of heaven the only other option is the inheritance of our proper birthright from our father the devil. Flesh gives birth to flesh (Jn 3:6). We are all conceived and born sinful and under the power of the devil until Christ claims us as His own. This is the imprisonment under the Law. It does not give life. This truth Matt will confirm momentarily. Each of you catechumens have confessed likewise.

On top of this, our Lord does not take kindly to testing. He turns the question back to the lawyer, What is written in the Law? The lawyer wants to know what to do. The Law tells you what to do and not do. And to his credit, the lawyer answers correctly: Love God and neighbor perfectly, without fail. That’s it! Love God and man. The summation of the Law. You learned that in catechism class.

But the maggots are here. Our Lord says, Do this and you will live. Now this is fierce condemnation. For who would dare say, “I’ve don it! I’ve loved God and my neighbor perfectly, all the time, one hundred percent.”

Test the Lord and wind up condemned. Do this and you will live is a dire threat. For the inverse is also the case, Do it not and you will die. And the lawyer has not done this. He hasn’t kept the Law. You have not kept the Law. Though you think yourself clever and able to hide any major transgressions. No man since the fall of Adam has kept the Law perfectly. That is except One - the GodMan, Jesus Christ.

But because no one has done this, no one should live. For the Law cannot give life! Every loophole you attempt to find, just binds you tighter. With every clever trick you only snare yourself. And so you do what Adam attempted to do in the garden, what Aaron attempted to do at the mountain, what the lawyer attempted to do with Jesus. You seek to justify yourself. This is the natural condition of fallen man - self-justification. Who is my neighbor?

And every Sunday school kid knows the answer. Everyone! Everyone is your neighbor. Ha! You’re it. And again you’re dead. You’re supposed to love all men as yourself. That’s what the Law demands. No exceptions, no replays. The beggar on the street. The thief who stole your identity. The man who murdered your family. Everyone.

And we loose. We have nothing left. No boast to make, no referee to blame, boss to rag on, prof to complain about. It is your fault. Your own most grievous fault. Because if everyone is your neighbor and you must love them all as yourself, which is exactly what the Law demands, than there is no hope. Do you see? There is no comfort in the Law. It cannot give life. Only death. The maggots are always there. We go to hell, just as we deserve. Our birthright, more worthless than a bowl of soup, is shown.

But did you notice: Jesus did not answer the lawyer’s question. The Sunday school kids know it is everyone, but Jesus won’t say it. Instead, He tells a parable and asks a question of His own. And the answer to His question is not “everyone.” His question is changed from the active to the passive. The student of the Law wanted to know what I must do. The Law is always concerned with I. But Jesus asks, Who was a neighbor unto the man? Not everyone. Only One.

This is the Divine Passive. God is the actor. He is the One who had compassion. Christ Jesus is the Good Samaritan who had mercy on all you men left beaten and bloodied, half dead in the ditch of sin. The priest and the Levite are powerless. They are on their way to Temple and don’t want to make themselves unclean. The Law cannot give life. It cannot save.

But the mercy and compassion of our Lord Jesus Christ is the power unto salvation. He knew the cost and went into the ditch for you. He stepped into your filth and refuse, was infected your disease and it killed Him. He made Himself unclean so that you might receive His righteousness and purity. For He pours on the oil of His forgiveness for all your sins and gives you the wine of His Eucharist. He binds up your wounds and salves your conscience. He places you on His animal while He shoulders the burden. And He brings you to the inn of His Church where He pays for everything and promises to come back on the day after tomorrow, the third day.

Which of these three, do you suppose, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? He wants the lawyer to say it. For this is the true purpose of the Law, to kill us, to crucify us, and to drive us to Christ, the One who shows mercy. And Jesus says, You go and do likewise. Does that mean we are to go and find people in ditched and help them? Yes. That we are to go and love all men as ourselves? Yes. That is the Law and it is the way of life in Christ the fulfillment of the Law. But it cannot give life. For God gave His inheritance to Abraham by the promise. If Jesus’s statement, Go and do likewise, is meant to return us to the Law, than we are right back where we started. The worms crawl back in and we’re dead.

But this is not the primary meaning. If it were, if Jesus is merely admonishing the lawyer and us to be nice and try harder, to not judge and help people, than the parable serves no purpose other than teaching the Law, sharpening that instrument of death. And sadly, this is how many Christians understand this parable. That’s how we get “Good Samaritan Laws.” But all this does it further condemn us. It makes Christ into a new Moses and the lawyer is dead in his trespasses. And so are we.

But the promise if made concerning the Seed, who is Christ, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Go and do likewise means, “Go and be neighbored by the One who shows mercy. Go and receive the divine mercy of Jesus your Good Samaritan.” As Jesus says elsewhere, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice. Go and learn what this means (Mt 9:13).

For the truth is that the Kingdom of God suffers violence and the violent take it by force. The King gives up His crown in death and bestows it as inheritance upon you in the birthright of Holy Baptism. You are covered with His holy, precious Blood. And your bloodline now runs through the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, making you are a rightful heir of heaven. The crown has changed hands by war. God in our Flesh surrendered to death in order to empty death and crush the serpent and make you His.

Blessed are your eyes that see what you see and your ears that hear what you hear. For the parable is not about the Law, but about mercy. Not about what you must do, but about what has been done for you and to you. You have received everything - forgiveness, life, salvation, grace, mercy, peace, joy, the kingdom, Christ Himself - all for free. Not by merit or work! You are an heir of eternal life.

How then ought you to live? Go and do likewise. Be merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful (Lk 6:36). Go and do as has been done to you and for you. Learn from the chief men of Ephraim and the others: care for the neighbor whom Christ has put into your midst - whether it be your spouse, your children, your roommate, your parents. Do so not as though to merit eternal life - that could never be! But as one to whom mercy and forgiveness have been bestowed for free; thus do you freely give as you have been given, bringing forth the fruits of faith according to the wisdom and mercy of God our Father, to whom be glory, power, and honor together with Jesus + Christ His Son, our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen.

Herod celebrates another year of life with a grand party, but he’s a dead man: dead in his trespasses and sin.

St John the Baptist goes from the frying pan into the fire; from the dungeon to the chopping block and martyrdom. But he is raised and he lives in and with Christ Jesus.

Those are your options too. There are only two ways. One of life the other of death. True life, everlasting life is in Christ Jesus alone. Only in His resurrection from the dead do you rise. Only by His Cross do you have life. And by sharing in His death and losing your own life do you share in His resurrection and life.

That is what your baptism has granted. That is what your baptism still means for you each day. You are put to death in order to be raised. Your own head is removed, that Christ may be your Head. Your body is buried with Him through baptism into His death, in order that you may belong to His Body, the Church.

That is what discipleship looks like: crucifixion or beheading, but either way, death and burial. Those who baptize and those who are baptized are put to death for the Name of Christ. Those who are sent to minister in His Name and those who receive that Ministry are under the cross. But it is by that Cross of Christ that you are raised with Him and live with Him forever.

As you suffer that Cross, learn then from St John, and do not despair. As you are shut up in prison, or shut out from the crowd, or otherwise alone and lonely, lift up your head, your heart and mind to Christ. Hear and heed His Word and know that He delivers you from death.

As you have your head chopped off, probably metaphorically and not literally, find your rest and peace in Christ Jesus. Though you are despised and rejected by the world, you are righteous and holy by faith in Him. Live, then, in the righteousness and holiness of Christ. Live by faith, by the hearing of His Word.

Do not seek to shut out or shut up the Word of the Lord, or keep it at arm’s length as if it were yours to control. If you are perplexed by the preaching of repentance, do not harden your heart, but repent; confess your sin and be forgiven.

To continue in sin is a living death. It is neither lawful nor safe to go on sinning. You cannot escape the consequences. They will come back to haunt you.

By the grace of the Lord given you, turn away from evil and do what is lawful, what is good, right and salutary.

Beloved in the Lord, do not be afraid to do the right thing even if it costs you your life or livelihood. The Lord shall indeed provide for you. He will not let you die. For you have already died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. But if you live in sin, then only death shall be your lot.

Do what you are given to do with confidence. Be strong and courageous. The Lord is with you like a dread Champion. If you share His death, so shall you shall His resurrection and His life. Whether you live or you die, you are the Lord’s.

You need not dance for this true King, nor seduce Him. For He has redeemed you with His own holy, precious blood, by His innocent suffering and death; that you should be His own and an heir of His Kingdom - not half, but the whole thing. He is not like Herod who takes his brother’s wife in fornication and adultery. Rather He takes you out of your idolatry and adultery to false gods and sanctifies you, having washed you by water and His Word, and has presented you to Himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Holy and without blemish.

How telling it is that St John is finally beheaded for preaching concerning the Lord’s proper design of marriage. He preached much. Called sinners to repentance. Baptized prostitutes and gangsters. Called Pharisees wicked vipers. But calling out the government regarding marriage, that is what got him martyred. It is an icon of Christ and the Church. A visible reminder of that divine and holy union. God given marriage is a picture of His divine and saving Gospel.

And laid before this this evening is the foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb in His Kingdom. This is the Supper that He not only hosts but is also the Meal. He invites not the high and mighty of the world, but the weak and lowly and despised.

Recline here at His Table with Him. Receive from His hand His Body given and His Blood shed for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins. Where there is such forgiveness, death cannot hurt you. Rest here under His Altar, until all things come to pass and all His promises fully realized, just as He has spoken. You shall not die, but live. Just as He is risen from the dead and lives and reigns to all eternity.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The man in our Gospel was deaf. He heard not the greetings and talk of family or friends, the sound of the wind, the birds, nor the language of music. Worst of all, he could not hear the Word of the Lord proclaimed in the synagogue.

But make no mistake, though deaf, there were certainly all kinds of languages he heard loud and clear. There was the alluring language of Satan, a preacher so enticing he even talks the deaf into sin and vice. There was the frightening voice of conscience driving him to hopelessness. And don’t forget the language of Moses and the ministry of death, written on tablets, but engraved also upon the heart. The man in our Gospel was deaf, but he needed no hearing aids to hear the voice of condemnation, shame and despair.

And though your physical trauma may not match his, your spiritual ailment is the same. You hear those voices too. They pierce through the pious veneers and get right to the heart of the matter. The voice that calls any form of sex outside of man-woman marriage what it is, adultery and the way of death. The voice that calls parents’ neglect of spiritual matters and the discipline of their children hatred of them. It calls the too frequent and over imbibing of alcohol, drunkenness and idolatry.

How corrupt we can be; ears closed to God’s holy Word and will, but quite open to dirt on others,. How perverse we are, with tongues tied when it comes to confessing our sin or speaking to unbelievers about Christ, but how fluent they are when it comes to gossip about friends. When it comes to hearing of God’s favor and approval, His grace and mercy, we deserve to be like the deaf man, hearing not the Word of absolution but the deafening silence of hell, where God’s Word is not spoken; His voice not heard.

But that is precisely why your heart rejoices to hear this Gospel. For your ears are blessed to have heard something truly wondrous. It is as you just sang, “Word of God come down on earth, living rain rain from heav’n descending; touch our hearts and bring to birth, faith and hope and love unending. Word almighty we revere You; Word made flesh we long to hear You” (LSB 545:1). Word made flesh come down, we long to hear you.

A Word that does not accuse and does not kill nor bring despair. But a Word that brings life. A Word that brings righteousness, health, and healing to sinners. A Word that absolves, forgives, saves, and makes alive.

St Mark shows our Lord Jesus coming down from the region of Tyre and Sidon to the region of the Decapolis, or Ten Cities, where He heals a deaf-mute. This reminds us that the language of the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments or Ten Words, bring bondage, sin, and shame. But here is the Word made flesh, come down from heaven for you, not speaking the language that you deserve, a word of death and damnation, but proclaiming the language of grace and mercy for rebels.

He came to fulfill the commandments which you’ve never kept. They may and indeed rightly accuse you. But the Ten Words describe our Lord Jesus Christ; His perfect obedience under the Law. He does not come with words that crush the heart that knows its sin or casts off the conscience plagued by guilt. He doesn’t come with a scowl or anger. He comes with compassion and love. He, the Word made flesh, comes with the Word of life.

When Moses came down with the Ten Commandments, people feared and were driven away by the glory that shone from his face. And the last time our Lord Jesus was in the Decapolis the townsfolk responded similarly. He had healed a demon-possessed man by sending the legion of dark angels into a herd of pigs and off a cliff. The townspeople begged Him to leave. But the man begged to go with Him. Jesus did not permit him but said, Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you (Mk 5:20). The man did as our Lord instructed him, confessing in the Ten Cities how much Jesus had done for him.

Now our Lord returns to the Decapolis in today’s Gospel and the people are not running in fear, being driven away in terror. But, having heard of the mercy of the Lord in Jesus Christ, they are coming to Him. Desperate people, hopeless people, outcasts, forgotten people, sinful people, being drawn to Him; rejoicing at the beautiful feet that have set foot in their cities.

The friends of the deaf man likewise drawn near to Him. For their help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. All things good. This is not the God who tries to keep an arm’s length from His creation gone bad on account of sin. This is not the God who puts on latex gloves before he deals with His Creation. This is the God who rolls up His sleeves and goes to work and gets dirty for you. To create you in His image and to save you by His Name.

Here you behold the very heart of the Lord for you. Nothing is beneath Him when it comes to saving and serving you. He who first formed man’s ear from the dust of the ground now stands again in the dust and restores this broken Son of Adam. The true God sticks His fingers in ears and puts saliva on tongues. He sighs. He groans with and for His creation. And He heals. He does all things καλοσ, good, that is, well, so that the deaf mute not only speaks plainly, but ορθοσ, that is, rightly, ortho-dox-ly.

These are not very glorious things in the eyes of the world. But hearing about these grubby matters brings joy to the hearts of grubby sinners. For this is exactly what your Lord did when He baptized you. He took you aside to His font, put the Finger of His Word in your ears and on your hearts, opening them to hear and receive the heavenly language of absolution. And He loosed your tongue to confess the holy language of the orthodox, Christian faith in word and song, liturgy and prayer, the good news of the God who so loved the world.For truly the language of salvation is even better. The Word made flesh here sticking His hands into the dirty ears of men, will walk the dusty road to Jerusalem where those hands will be nailed to the Tree for your sake. He will bear the accusations of the devil and the damning voice of the Law. He will hear no Word of mercy from His Father. He loves you so much He is willing to have His face bloodied, beaten and spit upon that your face might shine with His glory.

His divine ears have heard your opposition to His Word and will, yet He makes those ears a grave and buries your opposition with Him as it kills Him. His tongue remains dry and silent as He endures the wrath of God upon the Cross until it kills Him. And He is imprisoned in the dirty tomb for you.

All so that He might rise from the dead and announce your victory right into the silence of hell. He has brought the language of condemnation to nothing. There is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing His riches on all who call on Him.

But how will they call if they have not believed? And how will they believe if their ears have not been opened by His Gospel? And how are they to hear such Gospel without a preacher? And how shall a man preach unless he be sent? How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings the Good News that in the shed blood of Jesus Christ your sins have been atoned for and your guilt removed. Thus has Christ Jesus charged the men who hold His Office of the Ministry of the Preached Gospel to proclaim for your divine and eternal good.

And how blessed are your ears for such hearing. For this is the means by which faith is created, sustained, nurtured and nourished, through the hearing of the Word. And Christ Jesus is the very content and substance of the Word. He has opened your ears in Holy Baptism. And He bids you again hear His mighty, Ephphatha. “I have compassion on you.” “You are baptized.” “You are mine.” “Come, eat My Body.” “Come, drink My Blood.” “I forgive you.” “Receive My gifts and rejoice.” Indeed He does all things well.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father who raised our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Amen.

He was laid at the gate of the rich man, placed there in the hope that the man of means would have pity on him. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t bathe himself. Couldn’t dress himself. Couldn’t feed himself. It is likely he couldn’t even communicate very well. He was a beggar. Miserable and rejected. Ignored and forgotten by everyone.

Everyone except One. The Lord remembered him. For the Lord remembers the afflicted and the outcast. It is written, The Lord raises the poor from the dust; He stoops and makes us princes (Ps 113:6-8). He has mercy on poor, miserable beggars. He had mercy on Lazarus. He was helped by God. And in death he was carried by the angels to repose in the bosom of father Abraham, at peace and rest, awaiting the joy of the resurrection of all flesh.

According to the Gospel of St John, there was a pool in Jerusalem, in Aramaic, called Bethesda, where the invalids were laid. The blind, the lame, the paralyzed. Rabbinic legend holds that an angel would come down and stir the pool and the poor souls would clamor to its healing waters. Jesus once healed a man who had been lying there for thirty-eight years, saying, Get up, take up your bed, and walk (Jn 5:8).

This is where Danny was placed. Bethesda. Given to their charge in the hope that those with the means and ability would provide the care and compassion for our dear son and brother and uncle that we could not do on our own.

And in this way the Lord remembered Danny, provided for his needs not only of the body, but also for his soul. The Lord remembered him even when we forgot. The Lord cared for him even when his family could not.

Indeed the Lord cared for him more than we or anyone ever could. For Danny the Father sent His only begotten Son. Sent Jesus to be the outcast, to be afflicted, to be thrown outside the gates. Sent Jesus whose clothing was ripped from Him in His crucifixion. Jesus to whom food and drink were withheld at His death.

Sent Jesus who was ignored and rejected by all, even forsaken His Father in heaven. So that Danny would be none of those things. Sent Jesus so that Danny would receive mercy. So that Danny would be clothed with the robe of Christ’s own righteousness. Sent Jesus so that Danny would be fed with the wholesome Word of forgiveness. Our Father who is in heaven sent His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, so that Danny would receive temporal comfort here on earth and, of utmost importance, eternal rest, being carried by the angels, to recline upon father Abraham’s bosom and await the joy-yet-to-come of the resurrection.

For like the beggar Lazarus, Danny knew his condition. He knew he was a sinner in need of redemption; a beggar in need of divine mercy.

But the rich man, for all his decadence, all his luxury, was cast off to Hades, away from the presence of the Lord, away His mercy. Away from His comfort and rest, consigned for eternity to suffer torment. He was without mercy toward the beggar at his gate, so now the Lord was merciless to him. For he who denies mercy denies Christ.

Yet that man dares to call Abraham his father, even from hell! But it is Abraham who highlights for us the cause of his predicament: he did not listen to Moses and the Prophets; he refused to the heed the Word of the Lord. Despite his faithlessness he received temporal blessing and on account of his unbelief now endured eternal punishment. He serves as a warning. And a lesson in opposites, or better, in what we call the theology of the Cross.

The good things of our Lord are often hidden beneath suffering and shame; masked by what the world considers evil and weak. St Paul says it this way, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. And this is precisely what Danny is. One who suffered in and with Christ who suffered for him. He is a child of the heavenly Father, safely gathered to His fatherly heart, which is nothing less than our Lord Jesus Christ, crucified for us sinners and raised for our salvation, upon whom He bestows His Spirit of adoption as sons.

Behold, I tell you a mystery. Danny is not dead, even as Christ Jesus is not dead. Barb is not dead. Grandpa is not dead. The saints in Christ, made holy by faith in Him, are not dead. They are alive in and with Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. Their bodies are placed into the narrow chamber of the grave, awaiting the resurrection as a dear child is woken by his dear father.

For the truth, the reality, though hidden from our mortal eyes, is that Danny already died in Holy Baptism, even as we confessed this morning. He was buried with Christ in that watery grave. It is like Elijah and the widow’s son.

Grandma, when you and grandpa brought Danny to the waters of Holy Baptism, our Lord spoke these words to you, Give Me your son. There the Lord took Danny from you and made him His own. He snatched him away from the jaws of the devil and the grip of death. He rescued Danny from all his sin and welcomed him into the holy Body of Christ, the Church, through the gift of faith. And then, like Elijah in the story, delivered him to you to love and raise, saying, “See, your son lives.”

So even now Danny is with the Lord Jesus, to whom he belongs. To whom he has always belonged. To a Father who loves him more than any earthly father ever could. To His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ who ransomed Danny in body and soul with His own precious blood and innocent suffering and death. And to God the Holy Spirit who made Danny’s weak, mortal body His Temple. The Blessed Holy Trinity will keep him even as He keeps all His saints.

For by faith in Moses and the Prophets, that is, the Word of Christ Lazarus followed in the train of the saints of old - father Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David and Samuel, Ruth and Boaz, all his brothers and sisters in Christ. So too Danny. Blessed is the one You chose and bring near to dwell in Your courts! (Ps 65:4a). Danny is gathered with the great cloud of witnesses, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and evangelists, angels and archangels, with Barb and Grandpa, and all the company of heaven around the throne of the Lamb, who was slain yet behold He lives, beholding with his own eyes the glorious face of the Son of God, his Savior, praising him without end.

What about us? The rich man had five brothers for whom he was concerned after his death. He begged father Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to warn them. Abraham said to him, “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.” “No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.” Abraham said, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.”

Here we sit. Richer in the Word than they, having not only Moses and the Prophets, but also the Apostles and Evangelists - the totality of the Old and New Testaments - and the One to whom they point and preach, even Jesus Christ, back from the dead! Will we heed His Word? Even as the widow responded to Elijah?

Perhaps you’ve heard the story, but at the end of his life, Dr Luther scribbled something on a piece of paper in German and Latin. It was found in his coat pocket after he died. It read, We are all beggars, this is true.

We may be dressed and fed like the rich man; having everything we need, but when it comes to our place before God we are poor, miserable beggars, all of us. Sore ridden Lazaruses flung at the gate of the Rich Man. Covered in the shabby clothes, the filthy rags of even our best works. The sores of sin festering and infecting our bodies and the lives of those around us. Even the dogs stay away from us.

But Christ had seen our wretched state. And though He was rich, He made Himself poor for your sake, that in Him, you might receive the riches of the kingdom of His Father and the righteousness of heaven. He stooped into the gutter in order to lift you to Himself.

And the comfort with which He comforted Danny is offered to you as well. The cleansing bath of His Baptism by which He adopted you in grace and made you His own. The sumptuous feast of His Supper, His Body and Blood, in which He gives you not mere crumbs, but a seat at the Table, as His dear child. The sweet voice of His love spoken and preached to you in His Word, through which you have the forgiveness of all yours sins and the hope of the resurrection to eternal life.

People loved by God, hear His Word. Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it, that by patience and comfort of His holy Word, you may, together with your son and brother and uncle, embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life.In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Proverbs 3:1-8/2 Corinthians 4:7-10/St John 1:43-51In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.The greater things that our Lord Christ promised Nathanael - heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man - He has accomplished for you by way of His Cross and Passion, His Death and Resurrection.

He has opened the kingdom of heaven to you and all who believe and are baptized into Him. And in His own crucified and risen flesh He reveals the very Glory of the true and only God.

And so, as He came to Philip and Andrew, Nathanael and Simon, so does He come to you: in love and mercy, seeing you from afar, seeking you out in kindness and calling you to Himself; to take up your cross and follow Him. Come and see. For in Jesus of Nazareth the fullness and glory of God dwells bodily. He is the fulfillment of all the Scriptures. Of all the Law given through Moses and the entirety of the Prophets. He is what the Lord God has promised since the beginning, what He made known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And it is Jacob, the first Israelite, the man in whom there was much guile, to whom our Lord Christ appeared before His Incarnation. He stood atop a heavenly ladder stretched to earth, as in a dream, and promised to the Trickster the Seed of the Woman who would come and undo the devil’s greatest trick: death itself.

And the Word of the Lord became Flesh, and it is here in this place, the true Bethel, the House of the Lord, His Church, that He dwells with you and among you. The ladder stretched from heaven touching earth in His font, where He makes you a child of your heavenly Father. The ladder stretched from heaven touching earth in His pulpit, where His Word is continually spoken to you for the forgiveness of sins.

And the foot of the ladder placed upon His altar, whence angels descending, bowing before the glory of the Lord, hidden within Bread and Wine, the Body and Blood of Christ. Here heaven is not only opened, but the very heart and center of heaven is here, and given out to you. That is why angels and archangels, all saints and martyrs, including St Bartholomew, and all the company of heaven, that whole great cloud of witnesses, surrounds you and accompanies you in this place, encircling the Lamb of God upon His Throne.

Can such good and salutary things come to you from this place, in such earthen vessels as mortal men who speak in Christ’s stead and at His command? Indeed they can. And it is precisely by the power and wisdom of God and not according to the reason and strength of man. The wisdom of God makes foolish the world’s wisdom. And the power of God is made perfect in weakness, in the Cross and suffering, in the preaching of the Gospel, in the very midst of death. And above all, in the forgiveness of sins bestowed upon you fro Jesus’ sake. This is true healing for your flesh and refreshment to your bones.

This is why the Lord Jesus called Philip and Nathanael, that is Bartholomew, not only to be His disciples, but to be counted among His Twelve Apostles. Already in the beginning this is how it worked. Jesus called Philip who went and called Nathanael and brought him to Jesus. And so the great work of Christ continues in and through His Church, by the Gospel, even to this present day and in this place.

For your help comes from the Lord. He comes to you here, in the flesh, in order to save you from sin and death and give you life. He calls you out from under the fig tree with whose leaves you attempt to cover your shame to rest and find refreshment under in the shade of the Tree of His Cross. For this is how you are raised up from death to life, to abide with Him in the glory of His Father.

Dear friend in Christ, this is how He has called you - through the effort and sacrifice of another, who brought you to the font, walked with you to the rail, invited you to Come and see. And so this is how our Lord Jesus continues to use you, by the confession of His Word, to call others to Him, even as Philip called Nathanael. It is not a program, but it is evangelism, in the truest sense of the Word.

For the same Lord who saw you and knew you, sought you out, found you, and called you to Himself in love - the same Lord desires the repentance and salvation of your family, friends, and neighbors. He sees them and knows them and would call them to Himself, perhaps through you in steadfast love and mercy.

You have no power of ability to change their hearts, but you can bid them, “Come and see.” Come and see what you see, hear what your ears are blessed to hear: the Light of the revelation of the Glory of God in he Face of Christ Jesus which is for all the nations. In Him is the full and free forgiveness of all sins. He is the great Rabbi, the King of Israel, who rules in mercy and love and takes the guileful hearts of men and cleanses them by His own living Word to be His holy abode, creating and instilling trust in His Word and promises, inscribing them upon the tablet of your heart.

This day, Jesus has decided to go to Indianapolis. He has sought you out and found you. Come and see, listen and believe, for He gives even now to your eyes and ears, into your mouths and bodies, the greatest of all things: His own self for your heavenly food.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

It is easy to hate the Pharisee. He’s an offensive character. His values don’t fit well with middle America. He’s a conceited bigot. The irony is that its easy to look down on him even as he looked down on the tax collector and get caught up in that sick spiral where you think you’re better than he is because you don’t think that you’re better than other people like he does. Except that you do. You think you’re better than him. That is our sin. We don’t think we are better than the tax collector. We think we’re better than the Pharisee.

First off, the Pharisees, as a group, tend to get a bad rep. Sure some were involved with the plot to murder Jesus. But they generally were not conniving, evil, vindictive men who gathered in dark corners, greedily stroking their beards, trying to bilk widows out of their last mites. By and large the Pharisees were pretty upstanding citizens. They were of the remnant of Israelites that had come our of captivity in Babylon, trying to retain their Hebrew religion in a pagan land. They had a modicum of faith left to them when so much of Israel had become pagan secularists.

The Pharisees were, in a sense, the upper echelon of Israel. They were separatists. You had all the regular believers - they once, maybe twice a year on Yom Kippur and perhaps Pentecost; they tithed of their incomes and went to Temple on major feasts.

Separated from them you had the Pharisees. They fasted twice a week! They gave tithes of everything they had, money, goods, food. Even down to the spices in their cupboards! They went to Temple regularly. Many of them knew the Torah by heart. They rigorously interpreted the covenant Law and were extremely pious men. Truth is, we could all stand to stop dogging on them so much and maybe be a bit more like them.

Because by comparison, the tax collector was the dregs of society. He receives less than honorable mention in the Pharisee’s prayer: I thank you that I am not like the rest of men: extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like that tax collector over there! He’s not the bottom rung, he’s below that. The Pharisees were considered heroes. The tax collectors were traitors. They were Israelites who sold themselves out to the Roman governors, working for the very regime that was oppressing their people. They collected money from their friends, neighbors, townsfolk on behalf of the enemy. And they earned their cut by taking more than required, usually at the point of a sword. The modern equivalent is not an IRS agent. Its a mobster. The tax collector wasn’t Tony Soprano, but he was a goodfella.

You see, this parable is hardly a parable at all. It is incredibly straightforward. And like most of Jesus’ parables, shocking in its extremities.

Two men went to church for worship. One guy was well dressed, clean, upstanding, middle class guy. He had a good job, was a descent father, never cheated on his wife, put some money in the plate and helped on church clean-up day. The other guy was a drug-slinging, child pornographer, tattooed up both arms, stinking of booze. Right. Polar opposites. Jesus goes to extremes to get his point across.

And the point is not: “Appearances can be deceiving.” Or “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” Its not even, “You can’t understand a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes.” The point Jesus is making is this: Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven. Good works. Fasting. Tithing. Its not enough. These things don’t get you into heaven.

From start to finish this parable is about one thing: justification. How one is made right with God. The problem with the Pharisee is not his prayer. You pray the same things as he. Don’t believe me? Visit Riley Children’s Hospital some time and you’ll see. We do pray in thanksgiving that our Lord has spared us the crosses of others. We are not like the child soldiers of Somalia or the veiled women of Afghanistan. We are not being murdered by Muslims in Egypt. We go home and hug our kids a little tighter after another horrific Planned Parenthood video. By comparison our burdens a relatively minor. Everyone suffers. Everyone bears crosses. Its not to say yours aren’t hard. They are. I know. But nothing has befallen you that is not common to man.

But this isn’t what’s wrong with the Pharisee. His problem is not his words, but his heart. He trusted in himself and despised others. He prays not to God, but with himself, and points out the tax collectors because he wants to be compared. He thinks it’ll make him look good. But it doesn’t. It only shows his sins. Maybe not greed and thievery and sexual immorality. All desires of the body; passions of the flesh. But contempt, the desire of the mind.

There are two religions in the world: one of works and one of grace; one of Law and one of Gospel. There are all other religions and then there is sacramental Christianity. What one thinks about worship, prayer, faith, baptism, good works - it all boils down to this: justification. How are you made right with God? Is it by sacrifice and works, like the Pharisee? Like Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Papism, Beth Moorism, every other -ism out there? Or is it by mercy? The sheer grace of God the Father given you through Jesus Christ His Son our Lord? Unmerited. Unearned. Undeserved.

This is what St Paul reiterates to the Christians in Ephesus. You were νεκροσ - dead, miserable corpses, lifeless flesh - in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. But God, being superabundant in mercy, because of the mega love with which He loved you - even while you were rotting flesh - made you alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved! St Paul can’t even contain himself! By grace, through faith, which is itself a gift. Faith is a gift of God. Not the result of works. Your good works were prepared for you beforehand that you, recreated in Christ Jesus, may walk around in them.

This is the pure, un-ism-ed Gospel. You are saved by pure grace alone. Or you are not. This is the dividing line. The separation. This is what separated Abel from Cain. Job from his friends. Abraham from Abimelech. Isaac from Ishmael. Joseph from Potiphar. David from Saul. Mordecai from Haman. Daniel from Belshazzar. Joseph from Herod. The beggar Lazarus from the rich man. The Pharisee from the publican. What defines a man is not whether they are good or bad, but whether they believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and atoning sacrifice for all my sin.

This parable, like most of them, serves as a warning. What if we said, “Good thing for God that I’m here today. I have a lot to add to Him. He really needs me.” Or if we said, “There, I gave God my Sunday morning, that’s enough. The rest of the week is mine to spend as I want.” Or if we looked across the pew or the isle and thought, “What is she doing here?” “How come he keeps coming back.” Arrogance and pride breed contempt. Its dangerous to be impressed with what we do for God or give to the Church. Its not curiosity that killed the cat. It was pride.

Same as it was for Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and you. Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. That is, do not think more highly of yourself than you ought. God doesn’t need your good works. He doesn’t eat the food the Pharisee fasts. He doesn’t spend the money the Pharisee tithes. He is not impressed with the handful of weeds you picked up on your way into church and call them flowers.

Repentance is needed. Come up to the House of the Lord and learn to believe and pray and worship as the tax collector. For this is true religion: to despair of your works and self-sacrifices, and to throw yourself on the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. This is the sacrifice He desires: a broken and contrite spirit. This He will not despise. For He is a God of mercy and of grace who loves to forgive.

And this is promise of the parable. For the tax collector went home justified. He flung himself upon God’s mercy in his desperation. He had no righteousness of his own. He was ashamed of the things that he had done. He hated the lies he told, the evil he committed against his own people and those who loved him. He wanted to do better. He wanted to start over. He need mercy. He needed a God would be propitiated toward him by virtue of another. He needed a Savior. A Redeemer.

And that’s why he was in the Temple. For at that very hour, the hour of prayer, the lamb was being slain and its blood being offered up on the altar for the sins of the people. The innocent one was dying for the guilty. The blood of the sacrifice was covering the condemnation of the Law. The wrath of God is appeased. The Lord is gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love.

And the One who is telling the parable is the One to whom the lamb points, Jesus Christ. Who humbled Himself to the point of death, even death upon a Cross. He is the Mercy-Seat Sacrifice of the Father on your behalf. His blood, poured out for you, covers your shame and guilt and fears and grants you His forgiveness. This is the greatness of the Father’s mercy: that Christ, the New Temple, the true Ark, and the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, has become your Savior, your Redeemer. His blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. It doesn’t cry from the ground, but pleads for you in heaven before the throne of God, interceding for you. His blood bespeaks you righteous.

For this is the Gospel: the Father takes Pharisees and through the Crucifixion of Christ, makes them tax collectors and then bestows on them the riches of heaven. He exalts you. He makes you sons.

Come up to the House and Table of the Lord, and receive the Once-For-All Sacrifice, the Body and Blood of the Lamb, slain for you. For by grace you have been saved. And you shall go home justified.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, St Elizabeth, the mother of the Forerunner of our Lord, intoned with liturgical cadence, “Blessed are you, Virgin Mary, among women, and blessed is the Fruit of your womb!” I’m not sure it counts, being only half a Hail Mary. But St Mary, the Mother of God, said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for He has regarded, the humility of His maidservant.

We shall indeed follow the lead of the drum majorette of the Church Militant. After all, St Mary elsewhere said, Do whatever He tells you. Mother knows best.

Mother Mary speaks words of wisdom for by the Word of the Lord that came to her in bewilderment, St Mary believed and confessed that which is most certainly true: the Child within her womb is God. The Lord God of heaven and earth, whose majesty and glory fill the heavens and the earth, was confined in the single celled zygote, the Sperma, the Seed of the Woman, come to crush the skull of the devil and supplant His entire kingdom. God became a fetus.

In that moment of incarnation and conception, the Holy Spirit brought that infinitely small cell into existence by a special action upon the Virgin Mary. At that moment the Son of God, the Man from heaven, identified with all people who have ever been and who will ever be conceived. The One who was of Infinite worth because He is the Son of God, has given all men infinite worth by becoming Man. And the sacredness of human life has been raised to an even higher dimension than what can be observed by reason and experience because the Word was made flesh.

St Mary is rightly called blessed, though she in fact despises herself, and gives thanks to God for having regard for her lowliness. For the truth is we are not a collection of individuals. We are all taken from the flesh of Adam and the Earth Man is our first father. Thus we are all part of one another; not some metaphysical, hyper-spiritual way, but in the most tangible, fleshly way. We are all one flesh. And on account of the first Adam and first Eve, not to mention our own most grievous faults, that flesh is wasting away and rotting.

But Christ came as the Second Adam so that we could all have God in Him. By His Incarnation, the eternal Logos permeated all of humanity and all of humanity became part of Him.

Now through the Incarnation, the Son of God, shares in the life of every man, woman, and child - not only those born, but those conceived and never born. Because of that moment of that conception, we are all without race or gender, without culture or inheritance, without language or skill. We stand with the first Adam coram Deo, before God, and hear a verdict of condemnation.

But we stand with the Second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, coram Deo, and hear a verdict of righteous acquittal and justification, of holiness and innocence, the likes of which even the child in the womb has never known. If live, which exists between the conception of one simple cell and a fully developed baby, is so insignificant that it can be snuffed out, then our Lord’s life within His mother’s womb was equally insignificant and we would be without hope and without salvation.

But Life within the womb of the Virgin Mary was the most significant of all lives, and His conception raised to a new level that which was already sacred before God the Father. The womb of the Virgin was, as Luther says, and you sang, the majestic throne of God. For that St Mary is honored among all women blessed throughout all generations for being the Mother of God.

Yet it is not her, but her Son, who within His throne room receives the worship and adoration of John the Baptist, who though unborn, was the greatest of all the prophets. There, the One who ruled as God and King of all, in all humanity, put all His trust in God His Father. Thus the Church may bend the knee when we confess, He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man, but we stand at the crucifixion under Pontius Pilate, recognizing that tyrannical rule of a pagan government, though the mask of God, does not always conform her actions to His good and gracious will. The Cross may be a divine must, but the murder of the Holy Innocent was still unjust.

Yet do we regard it as the exultation of He who made Himself nothing for us, that in Him we might be exalted. For there Life was terminated in the most violent of ways; yet death does not remain. There the Child of Mary was torn apart from His Father and His mother; yet He makes you whole. There He who was unwanted, unplanned, unreceived, was expediently put to death; yet He has bestowed upon you the right to be child of His Father in heaven.

St Mary rejoiced that God had regard for her. This is the highest and chief blessing, from which all other blessings, grace, salvation, gifts, and even good works, must follow. Beloved, blessed in the Lord, He has had regard for you; knowing you before He even formed you in the womb; knitting you together, forming your inmost parts.

If John the Baptist confessed the faith by an unarticulated leap in his mother’s womb at the voice of the Mother of God, then perhaps God in His infinite mercy might provide a word of redemption which these children could hear and believe before their lives are snuffed out. And if their lights are not permitted to shine before men to glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, perhaps they can still shine in heaven.

But maybe we are treading into the land of divine mysteries where human trespass is forbidden. But we do so not only out of great frustration, but out of the knowledge that those children who have been sacrificed in the womb have been redeemed by the One who lived in the womb. Will He who reigned over heaven and earth fro His mother’s womb and He who in His infancy escaped the hand of the butcher King Herod, not pray before His God and Father in heaven for those form whom no way of escape is provided?

May our souls, like the Virgin Mary’s, magnify the Lord and our spirits rejoice in God our Savior. His mercy is upon those who fear Him. He raises the lowly and humbles the proud. May He who has out of the mouths of babes and infants ordained strength, mortify and kill all vices in us and so strengthen us with His grace that by the innocency of our lives and the constancy of our faith, we may glorify His holy Name.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Our Lord Jesus once drew near to a funeral procession and saw the tears of a widow weeping over the dead body of her only son. He had a Word for her: Do not weep (Lk 7:13). And then He raised him from the dead and gave him back to his mother. Jesus once drew near to a house of Jairus and saw his tears. His twelve year old daughter had died. He had a Word for the parents: Do not weep (Lk 8:52). He took the girl’s hand and raised her up. When Jesus was lead to the Cross, He was followed by a large group of women who were weeping and wailing over the brutality of His treatment and His impending death. Somehow He mustered the strength to utter a Word to them: Do not weep (Lk 23:28).

That is what He came to do. To draw near to hearts broken with grief and sorrow, mourning and sadness and heal them. To see the tears of man and wipe them away. To behold the unspeakable sorrow of life in this world and bring a Word of peace and comfort and joy to it.

So something is very odd in this morning’s Gospel. Jesus draws near to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, His not-so-triumphal entry, He beholds the city, and He weeps. God cries. His heart breaks for those within her walls. You know this very feeling if you have seen the horrific images these past weeks of the abortion videos from Planned Parenthood. Your heart breaks. You feel it in your gut, in your bones. You weep for those within her womb.

So our Lord Jesus. You would have thought that Jerusalem would know the things that make for peace. Jerusalem literally means, “City of Peace.” But they refused those things. Things like Jesus’ Word. Things like His shed blood. Things like the throne of His Cross and His crown of thorns. Things like the nails piercing His hands and feet. Those are the things that make for peace between God and man, the death of the true King. But they refuse to believe. And that is what makes God cry - unbelief; His love rejected.

If the city spurns the things of Jesus’ peace, all that’s left for them is the peace that the Romans bring. The Pax Romana. And they know how to bring it. Our Lord warns them: in about 40 years, in A+D 70, a Roman general named Titus would draw near and bring his own version of peace; the peace that only a pagan, godless government can bring.

And the things that brought Roman peace were things like the cutting off of Jerusalem’s food supply so that thousands of Jews would die or resort to eating rats, or worse. Things like forcing weak, hungry Jews to bury their own dead so that they would fall into the graves themselves, half alive. Things like the alleys of Jerusalem clogged with thousands of corpses. Things like gigantic piles of dirt ringing the walls, where those who tried to climb to escape were given their own cross upon which they were hung. All of this happened to Jerusalem in A+D 70 because they refused the peace that Jesus gave. The Last Day will be much worse. No wonder Jesus weeps. Kyrie Eleison!

So here we are in the year of our Lord 2015 and we are still all messed up. Still trying to find peace and rest outside of Jesus, outside His Word and the things of His peace.

There you are again, trying to justify that naughty thing you did. That’s not finding your peace in Jesus. There you are again, thinking you can handle that guilt of yours by yourself. That’s not finding your peace in Jesus. There you are again, frustrated and angry in a world that is unfair and you’re always venting. But that’s not finding your peace in Jesus. There you are again discontent, nursing your bitterness, stewing with resentment, and giving God the silent treatment. None of these things make for true peace. Rather, they are the things that destroy a person and make God weep.

Repent. Today is the Day of your Visitation. Today your Lord Jesus comes to you in the way of the prophet Jeremiah and declares to you the things that make for peace. Today you have a chance to do what Jerusalem never did. Today is not the day to say, “I was baptized, therefore it doesn’t matter that I lie, cheat, steal, hate and live any way I want.” Today is not the day to say, “Of course I’m in, I’m Lutheran.” Today is not the day to say, “This is the Church of the Lord, the Church of the Lord, the Church of the Lord.” And go on willfully sinning.

Rather, today is the day to confess your lack of faith in Christ Jesus and His Word; to confess your lack of proper fear, love, and trust in God above all things.

So repent, but do not weep. For Jesus draws near not only to warn you in love and compassion, but to bring you His Word of Peace to absolve you.

So do not weep. Your Jesus draws near in mercy and pity. He reminds and comforts you with the things He did to make for your peace. For He went to His Cross and Passion, taking the naughty things you’ve done into His nailed hands and feet. There He was, burdened with the guilt of sinners on His bloody back and handling it for you by shouldering it to the Cross, emptying it of its power to accuse. There He was, treated very unfairly, unjustly, but doesn’t retaliate.

Instead He takes your anger, your bitterness, your resentment right into His pierced side. And He buries it. Then He triumphs over it by His resurrection, putting an end to the Law for righteousness to all who believe. Stop hunting for a scapegoat for your troubles. You have something better. Yours is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Of course Jesus entered the Temple and drove out those who sold. He must have room for Himself. Your loving Savior came into the world not to sell, not to getting anything out of you, but to freely give. Of course He scattered the sacrificial animals. What are they compared to Him, God’s final and complete sacrifice for all your sins? Of course He overturned the table, for He came to overturn the devil’s kingdom and purchase you with His precious blood, reckoning to you a righteousness that comes by faith alone in Him.

Do not weep. There is no need. For there was once a funeral procession and you were the dead sons. But Jesus drew near and baptized you, raised you from the dead and saved you from eternal wailing, never to die again. You were once dead in your trespasses and sins, but Jesus drew near and raised you from the dead to be His Temple. You were once dead in your sins, but Jesus drew near, and baptized you, and made you alive with His Spirit to be His new Jerusalem, His new city of peace in this world, having mercy and pity on all. Do not weep, but be exceedingly glad.

Of course Jesus overturned the tables. For He had a better Table in view. One that He has set up in your midst and to which He calls you this morning. Upon this Table are the things that made and make for peace - the Bread which is His Body, the Cup filled with the Wine that is His Blood. This is our peace. The Body of Jesus is our Peace, our Rest, our Joy, our Hope, our Healer of Broken Hearts and Wiper-Away of all tears. Hang upon Him and His Word.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

On the Sabbath day, while the disciples, men and women, rested according to the Third Commandment of the Law, Christ Jesus, Lord of the Law, having fulfilled the Law and the Prophets for you, through His innocent suffering and death, descended into Hell in both body and soul to proclaim His victory over sin and Satan.

But on the first day of the week, Sunday, the everlasting day and day of the new creation, before early dawn and the arrival of the burial party of the women, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Righteousness arose with healing in His wings. He emerged triumphant from the grave and was resurrected from the dead, never to die again, death has no dominion over Him. And He appears to these women, Joanna, Mary, and Salome, that they might carry His Word to the Apostles, who would, in turn, proclaim His Word in His stead and by His command to all creation, freeing people, men and women, from their sins.

As with St Mary Magdalene, whom the Eastern Churches call “the apostle to the apostles,” so with these faithful women, Joanna, Mary, and Salome, called myrrhbearers, our Lord Christ, in His wisdom and according to His mercy, chooses to reveal Himself alive first to them. For not only did these pious women support the earthly ministry of Christ and His disciples out of their own means, but, “in keeping with His ancient custom, the Lord was choosing what is foolish, undistinguished, and despised in the eyes of the world in order to put the strong and lofty to shame.”

Lutheran Father, Martin Chemnitz says it this way, “These women were despised not only due to the weakness of their gender but also because of Galilee, their homeland.” Chemnitz was not degrading women, but merely recounting the social milieu of the day in light of the high honor of being the first eye-witnesses and proclaimers of the Resurrection, which is an excellent and central article to our faith. Once more, this account of the women being the first eye-witnesses, only adds to the veracity of the Gospels.

Now, contrary to popular, liberal theology, Christ and Christianity honor women, above all other worldviews, as the blessed gift of the Lord that they are and for the blessed gifts He bestows upon them for the good of the Church and society. Yet doing so without negating God’s good order of His creation. For Christ restores that by His death too! Consider at the Fall how these three worked together: the devil, a fallen angel, who deceived; the woman, who proclaimed his talk further; the man who ate and corrupted human nature. So also at Christ’s resurrection, these three worked together: Christ, the true Man, who rose and redeemed human nature, the angel who proclaimed the resurrection, and the women, who carried the joyful and saving message further.

For these faithful women - Joanna, Mary, and Salome, whom the Church remembers on August 3rd - exemplify the receptivity of faith, living passively before God through Jesus Christ, and actively before the neighbor and the world in works of mercy. They are named in the Gospels, which cannot be overlooked for its importance and significance. Christ Jesus honored these women and submitted, if you will, to allow them to care for His bodily needs and the bodily needs of His disciples.

This is not to be understood in a vulgar manner, but rather, that these faithful women supported the proclamation of the Gospel in Word and act from their own sustenance and means. While little is known about each of them, it is to be assumed that they were women of financial asset. Joanna, the wife of Chuza, a steward in Herod’s household (Lk 8:3), provided care for Jesus. Likewise Mary, the mother of James the son of Alphaeus, otherwise known as James the Less, who was a disciple of our Lord Jesus; and Salome, who was the mother of the sons of Zebedee, a prominent fisherman (Mt 27:56).

These women, and the other nameless ones among the disciples of Jesus, have exemplified to the Church through the centuries the characteristics of humility and devoted service honored by our Lord. Unlike the male disciples of Jesus, they accompanied Christ not only through His Galilean ministry, but remained with Him at His crucifixion, even while Peter and James, and all except John, fled and abandoned Him. In this way, I suppose, they were more faithfully devoted to Christ, at least in this instance, than the Apostles, and provide for us an icon of the Church and her steadfast fidelity to the Lord who bought her at a price.

Moreover, they who cared for His body during His earthly life, Joanna, Mary, and Salome, mentioned variously in the Gospels, came together in solemn procession to the tomb on Easter Day with the express purpose of doing them same; taking the burial spices they had prepared. Somewhere along the line the Church took to calling them myrrhbearers. And this is fitting for it connects them to the Incarnation of our Lord and the arrival of the Magi. Then, three unnamed men, traveled afar to bestow gifts to the Boy King. Gold, frankincense and myrrh. Useless to a child. Gifts fit for a King. The sale of which likely bankrolled the Holy Family’s exodus to Egypt. I doubt they were very materialistic or nostalgic.

But now, three named women, honored thusly within the Church, bring myrrh, an aromatic burial spice, to anoint the body of the Lord Christ, the Incarnate Son of God. They who helped bankrolled His ministry, continue to cast aside materialistic notions, providing for the expense of myrrh and spices, to honor the Body of Him who paid for their sins in His Body on the Tree. Our Lord was pleased to reveal Himself first to them that morning. And they did not depart the tomb empty, but filled with the joy and life of His Resurrection to carry to others. So too does He do for all who approach Him in the meekness and humility of faith; He will not send you away empty, but fills you with the good things of His mercy and forgiveness, life and salvation, joy and peace that you may grow in faith toward Him and in charity and love for others.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

2 Samuel 22:26-34/1 Corinthians 10:6-13/St Luke 16:1-13In the Name + of JESUS. Amen.Jacob was a shrewd man; a trickster. Shrewd men take advantage of a situation in order to gain benefit for themselves. And no one did this better than Jacob.

When he saw his exhausted brother Esau come in from the field, he took advantage of the situation and sold him some soup for his birthright. When his father Isaac was old and blind, he took advantage of the situation and disguised himself as his hairy brother, covering his hands and arms with goat skin and receiving the blessing intended for Esau. When Jacob’s rival and father-in-law Laban promised him the speckled and spotted sheep, Jacob took advantage of the situation and engaged in a little ancient animal husbandry. Then, when Laban was away sheering sheep, Jacob again took advantage and fled with his wives and children back to Canaan.

You might think that God would be ashamed to associate with such a shrewd man. You can understand God being the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac; except for that whole, “my wife is just my sister” business, they were pretty descent men.

But the God of Jacob? The Cheater, the Usurper, the Trickster? Yet God is not ashamed of him. In fact, He chose him as patriarch. He is even pleased throughout Holy Scripture to call Himself the God of Jacob. Nor is He ashamed to call His chosen people Israel, My servant Jacob. He is not ashamed to be associated with the shrewd. It is as David said, With the merciful You show Yourself merciful; with the blameless man You show Yourself blameless. With the crooked You make Yourself seem tortuous.

Perhaps all of this helps us a bit to understand today’s parable about the Shrewd Steward. Even though it is the unrighteous steward’s actions which get all the attention, the parable is really about the mercy of God the Father. It is just like the parable before this one (Scripture cannot be broken), the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which is really a vivid picture of what the Father’s mercy is like. It is like a father whose son is brash enough to ask for his inheritance early, effectively denouncing his father. And the father gives it!

Then the son squanders it in self-indulgent living. But what was squandered was more than just some money. He likely received his inheritance in land which means he had to sell it for pennies on the dollar. He was squandering generations of his ancestor’s blood, sweat, and toil. He was squandering his father’s name and reputation in the community. What he thought would be exhilarating only brought him shame and suffering. And in the end it was not money or property, but the Father who was being abused and squandered.

And yet, when this scamp of a son comes to his senses he relies on his only hope for the future - his father and his mercy. And the father doesn’t so much as wait for a syllable to come out of his son’s mouth in order to run to him, embrace him and dress him in the finest attire for the party.

Today’s parable is linked with that one. Not only does it begin the same way, there was a (rich) man who had . . . But the steward is guilty of the same sin the prodigal son committed: διασκορπιζο, squandering, the possessions of another. And even more, just as that parable is about the extravagant mercy of God the Father, shown in the father having compassion on his dirtbag son. So here, the Rich Man is charitable concerning this dirtbag manager.

But this steward was so shrewd he made Jacob look like an amateur. He took advantage of the situation to benefit himself. He did what the prodigal son did; he relied on the mercy of the rich man as his only hope for the future. And this was not unexpected, but was already shown in not immediately throwing the steward in jail or having him put to death. Rather the rich man allows him to fetch the books. Was he encouraging this steward’s shrewdness? Was this the manager’s sin to begin with? He exacted justice and not mercy?

In any case, by cutting the deep debt of the poor he was not only generating goodwill for himself, but he was making the rich man look like a hero in the debtor’s eyes. And not that! They took the deal not at all suspicious of what happened, almost as if this mercy was entirely within the character of the rich man. And that’s what the steward banked on. He hoped that the rich man would note expose him and take back the discount, but would honor it, knowing that the rich man liked nothing better than to be known as a generous and merciful Lord and Giver.

We wouldn’t have praised the steward for doing this. In fact, Jesus calls him unrighteous. The man was a cheat and a scoundrel . He committed fraud! But Jesus doesn’t conclude the parable saying, “Now you go and do likewise.” Rather He is giving you a picture of what God the Father is like. He is like the Rich Man. And you are not. The Rich Man does something that shocks us, He commends the unrighteous steward for his shrewdness. Not for his dishonesty. And even though He is being used, He doesn’t mind. It portrays Him to others as He desires to be known: as merciful and generous.

It is a difficult parable to understand. And it is contrary to our reason. But so are most of the parables: Shepherds dying for their sheep, Vineyard owners paying workers a whole day’s wage for doing an hour of work, Men buying property for a single pearl. The Gospel is counterintuitive; foolishness.

Consider this. If the Rich Man is the Father, then that makes Jesus the Shrewd Steward. Except for the dishonest, they have a lot in common. The steward was given authority by the rich man. All authority in heaven and on earth was given to Jesus by the Father. The steward made himself a friend of the poor by cutting their debt. Jesus made Himself the Friend of Sinners by canceling the debt of the poor in spirit. And just like the shrewd steward, Jesus’ actions took advantage of God the Father’s desire and delight to be known as gracious and merciful. He did whatever it took to get you some of that abundant, fatherly mercy.

And you sure need it. For God has given you may opportunities to be shrewd and make your Father in heaven look good and merciful, but you’ve blown it. He wants to be known as gracious, yet you portray Him as vindictive and exacting justice. He has placed you in the midst of your family with brothers and sisters and in laws that fight, hold grudges and speak ill of each other when they are not around so that you might imitate your Father and be merciful and forgiving and gentle all with no strings attached. But you’ve blown it; you have put Christ to the test.

God has placed you in the midst of children and grandchildren who are ungrateful, rude, self-absorbed, so that you might take advantage of your chance to show them unconditional love and make your Father in heaven look good. But you’ve blown it.

God has placed you in the workplace where you are treated unfairly, where people take advantage of you and are nasty to you, so that you might shrewdly do what no one else would - bear it patiently and pay them back with kindness. But instead you’ve plotted payback; testing your Lord Jesus Christ.

When it comes to manifesting His rich mercy and charity in this world, the Father cannot praise and commend you. It has been too lacking. He could easily abandon you to that silent treatment called hell.

But you have a Savior. A Savior who took advantage of your deep and desperate need. A Savior that is shrewder than Jacob; shrewder than a quick thinking manager. A Shrewd Savior, the Ultimate Trickster, who took advantage of the situation in the fullness of time and shrewdly did what it took to save you from sin and everlasting death.

Jesus the Trickster took on human flesh and came into the world to save humanity, poor debtors the lot of them, from the devil who was hungry, not for a bowl of soup, but to swallow down all of mankind in his gullet. So Jesus shrewdly took advantage of the situation to get benefit not for Himself, but for you and the glory of His Father. He inserted Himself into that gullet with your sins that they might go there and die with Him. And while Satan’s minions danced on His grave, Jesus came forth from the dead on the Third Day, ripping open death’s gullet and giving you the eternal victory. Talk about shrewd.

Jesus the Trickster was the shrewd steward of God’s mercy for sinners. He took advantage of the situation at the Cross by covering Himself with all your sins. Not just the regular, respectable ones, but also the big ones, the deep ones, the ones that plague your thoughts and haunt your conscience. He didn’t just manage the debt you owed the Father. He didn’t just discount it, but He went to the Cross to bear all of it, fully and completely, every last one, for everybody - the sin that you are and the sin that you do - and He delivers the bill, paid in full, to you in your Baptism.

Come, says the Shrewd Steward, come, for He has made you sons of light. He saves a humble people. His way is perfect and He has made your way blameless. He will not require of you any oil, but instead bestows upon you the oil of gladness and His Holy Spirit. He will not require any wheat, but invites you to receive wheat; wheat joined by His Word that is His Body, along with wine that is His Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. Here the God of Jacob honors the shrewd dealings of His Son. Here the Rich Man makes you rich. And for the sake of His Son, honors, commends, and delights in you.

In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.